Category: Faith

Once in a while I write JARs, which stands for “just a reminder.” It’s the stuff you probably already know, but might have forgotten. For example, what is the difference between experiencing the fast and just fasting?

We are about to finish Great Lent and enter Holy Week, and I am wondering if I did a good job fasting. I followed the fasting guidelines in what I did and didn’t eat… Not sure I can say it was to the “best” of my abilities… but now I am wondering if I experienced the fast or just fasted? Meaning, did I let the fast do what it was supposed to do? Did I offer my will to God more during this season? Was I gluttonous? Did I let the food become a distraction? Did I recognize what hunger means and that my souls should hunger for God in the way my tummy grumbled?

But it goes even a little further.

Last week I noticed something interesting during the Pre-Sanctified Liturgy that had to do with experiencing the fast.

Experiencing the Fast

Confession time. Last week I wimped out and chose to eat a late lunch instead of prepare to receive communion for Pre-Sanctified Liturgy. I attended the service all the same. I thought that if I was at least in the church for the service I would receive a blessing via osmosis. Maybe?

Participating in the service on a semi-full stomach changed the experience. First, it was strange because I wasn’t tired. I was actually quite refreshed. What’s wrong with that? It made reading the Psalms a different experience.

In the service we read:

Psalm 129/130 Out of the depths I have cried out to you: Lord, Lord, hear my voice! Let your ears be attentive to the voice of my plea. If you retain sins, Lord, O Lord, who can stand? With you there is forgiveness. For your name’s sake, O Lord, I have waited for you. My soul has waited for your promise, my soul has hoped in the Lord. My soul has trusted in the Lord, from the morning watch till night. Let Israel hope in the Lord, for with the Lord there is steadfast love and in him is full redemption, and he will redeem Israel from all his iniquities.

On the other Wednesday nights, when I properly prepared for communion, by the time the service started, I was tired and hungry. I moved slowly and carefully. I could more easily relate with these words.

But my experience of the fast went a little further.

Waiting on God

Even the verse, “O Lord, I have waited for you. My soul has waited for your promise, my soul has hoped in the Lord.” has a different connotation when we are waiting for communion. When we fast and prepare, we are experiencing what it’s like to wait for God to satisfy our physical hunger, and even our spiritual hunger.

It’s not too late

It’s not too late to experience the fast. Holy Week in coming. The fast continues and there are lots of services offered. Don’t wimp out. Enter into the experience of what the Church is offering.

In this evening’s Vespers service I was drawn into the following hymn:

Your grace has shone forth, O Lord; the illumination of our souls has shone forth. Behold, this is the acceptable season; behold, this is the season of repentance. Let us put away the works of darkness, and put on the armor of light, so that we may navigate the immense ocean of Lent, and arrive at the third-day Resurrection of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, the Savior of our souls.

AGES Digital Chant Stand

The imagery of an “ocean of Lent” was a great expression of what I had experienced in years past. Allow me to explain.

The ocean is deep

Lent is deep.

Spiritual warfare comes in waves

Just when you think you have everything under control something comes and hits you upside the head like a bucket of water.

We need a ship to travel on the ocean

The ocean is no fun if you aren’t in a boat. It’s actually dangerous. Lent doesn’t make sense if you don’t have the Church and the services to carry you along.

Just floating isn’t enough. We have a journey ahead.

So it’s time to push off the pier, get in the boat and chart your course. If you get wet, it’s ok. If your boat tips, all the better. I mean, isn’t starting over one of the best advantages of Lent?

Let fasting be your wind, prayer your sail, repentance your rudder, and charity you compass. Your course has been set. The map is tried and true. Lent has begun.

Okay! It’s probably cold where you are and Spring is the last thing on your mind. Gee! we just finished celebrating the Presentation of Christ which is Jesus’ Forty Day Blessing… forty days following Christmas. And just recently the Groundhog predicted another 6 weeks of Winter. But the Moveable Feasts of the Orthodox Christian Calendar tell us we are about the begin the Triodon, the three weeks before Great Lent, which means Easter is coming early this year.

What is the Triodion?

The Triodion is what Southerners refer to as “fixin’ to get ready.” It’s the three week period where we slowly get into the right mindset for Great Lent. You see the difference in the Sunday Gospel Readings and the fasting schedule.

Triodion Gospel Themes

You know the stories, they repeat every year but here’s a quick reference.

Triodion Fasting Rules

And in the finest expression of Orthodoxy, the church has a special fasting practice for the Triodion.

Week One- FAST FREE WEEK! Yup! No fasting this week! This is a good time to get it all out of your system.

Week Two- Regular (Wednesday and Friday) fasting. This is a good week to clean out the refrigerator.

Week Three- Start by removing meat from your diet. It’s a week to help you get in the mood. I imagine going cold-turkey from meat and dairy would be rather traumatic. This third week is the final step.

It’s so easy to get caught up in the Christmas shopping season and the false sense of want. Ads and catalogues are being sent to our homes competing for attention. You probably think you need another “this” or two more of “that.” The double page layouts can be very convincing. Surely you know someone, anyone, who would appreciate item 4B on page 15, in multiple colors and sizes.

But this kind of thinking is exhausting, especially if you try to maintain it for 6 weeks, (which is evident by the abandoned naked pine trees and dark homes on December 26.)

Justify it as the virtue of giving all you like. The truth is that it’s all a distraction from what really matters. Christmas is a religious holiday, not a shopping season.

Jesus Christ, the Word of God, who created the universe, has chosen to enter into the limits of his creation. And not as a mature man with the rights and privileges of adulthood, but as a tiny, vulnerable baby.

This is something awesome, something worthy of greater reflection than a moment of silence before you dig into a well-laid feast or rip open the boxes under the tree.

Keeping the Advent Fast is the best way to remember that Christmas is a religious holiday.

Why? Fasting requires us to delay the celebration of Christ’s birth until Christ’s birthday. It also allows the days preceding said celebration to be one of reflection and preparation. If I might interject a commonly used phrase, it’s “the reason for the season.”

Don’t let the holiday activity distract you from the end prize, which is actually just the beginning.

The Advent Fast lasts November 15-December 24. There is no fasting December 25- January 6, (except January 5 which is a strict fast day in preparation for Theophany.)

May we have a blessed fast which will prepare us for a glorious feast!

It’s important to remember that God is great, good and merciful, when we are up and down, good and bad, celebrating and struggling. Give thanks to the Lord for ALL THINGS and your life will be blessed.

Your holy icon, depicting the Death of our Lord, we venerate, All-praised One; having been called upon through invocation, the lilies were observed to grow on it green and fresh after the passage of time; we praise your grace with all reverence, Virgin, crying out: Glory to your mighty works Pure One, Glory to your wonders, Glory to your care towards us, O Immaculate One.

Panagia tou Harou is an icon of the Virgin and Christ, on the island of Lipsi, Greece. This icon depicts the Virgin Mary holding a miniature crucified Christ.

On the Apodosis (Leave-taking) of the Feast of the Dormition (August 23), which is 9 days after the Dormition of the Virgin Mary, thousands gather on the small island to witness a miracle.

The miracle comes from flowers that were offered as thanks to the Virgin Mary in the 1940s. The local folklore tells of a woman who was praying in a little countryside chapel before the icon of Panagia tou Harou. Her prayers were answered, and in gratitude, she returned and placed a simple bouquet of lilies on the icon. These lilies were forgotten and dried on the icon.

In the following year, on Vespers of the Apodosis (Leave-taking) of the Feast of the Dormition (August 23), when they opened the little chapel once more, as it is customary to only hold services in the small chapels on their feast days, these rootless lilies blossomed and were fragrant.

We recently celebrated the Feast of Transfiguration. I enjoy decorating the icons with flowers. I chose to put white flowers on the top and brighter colors on the bottom to resemble the contrast with heavenly and worldly.